WEST POINT, N.Y. – The U.S. Military Academy's Class of 2023 cadets Seth Benson, Jacob Lapin, Matthew Porter, and Chiara Wurdack Simmons have been selected to receive the prestigious Carnegie Mellon - West Point Scholarship, allowing for continued graduate academic study following graduation and commissioning.  

About the Scholars 

Cadet Seth Benson is a double major in American politics and applied statistics and data science from West Fargo, N.D. His primary research interest is political polarization, which he has examined from social science and machine learning perspectives. Benson has a paper accepted for publication and multiple conference presentations exploring congressional candidate behavior and its relation to partisanship. His data science research uses natural language understanding techniques to determine bias clusters in cable news and explore how they drive polarization. Benson participated in the Peace and Dialogue Leadership Initiative, visiting Israel and the West Bank. Benson competed all four years on his company Sandhurst team, winning the fall competition, led 131 cadets during their initial cadet basic training, and facilitated honor education for West Point’s 4,400 cadets. Benson hopes to use his career as a cyber officer to contribute to the information domain.  

“Through the Carnegie Mellon scholarship, I will be able to represent West Point while gaining skills and experience that will make me a better cyber officer. I am very grateful for the opportunity to attend the Master of Information Technology Strategy Program at Carnegie Mellon and further my education.” 

 Cadet Jacob Lapin is a double Chinese and defense and strategic studies major from Los Angeles, California. His research involves the union of strategic counteraction against the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese cultural studies. Lapin spent a semester in Taiwan at Fu Jen University where he connected his studies in computer science to his Chinese research by conducting a study into the Uyghur genocide and founding the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Prevention’s Human Rights Initiative. Lapin served as a regimental executive officer for West Point’s cadet basic training. He plans to use his Chinese language skills in tandem with his understanding of machine learning to advance the Army’s Artificial Intelligence development mission. Upon graduation and commissioning he will serve as a cyber officer. 

“I am deeply honored and grateful to be a recipient of the West Point-Carnegie Mellon Scholarship. I am thrilled to have the chance to learn and engage with cutting-edge research at Carnegie Mellon University. I am also excited to be a part of the exchange of ideas between the military and civilian worlds and to learn more about how we can integrate the Army more effectively with our private counterparts.”  

Cadet Matthew Porter is an international affairs major with a minor in terrorism studies from Brentwood, Tenn. During his undergraduate study, Porter focused his academic and extracurricular activities on his passion for global security and reducing the threat of terrorism worldwide. He interned with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Kansas City, Mo., collecting and analyzing intelligence on domestic and global terrorism cases. Porter demonstrated leadership as a team captain on West Point's NCAA cross country and track teams and served as an "honor officer," where he educated his company on the cadet honor code. He hopes to utilize his study of international affairs and counterterrorism in his future career as a Military Intelligence officer by working alongside foreign partners to gather intelligence and reduce the threat of terrorism.  

“I am humbled and honored to have the opportunity to research and study at Carnegie Mellon University. It reflects the work I have put into my academic career and illustrates the care others have put into me. My parents did not have the opportunity to attend graduate school; thus, I will represent them well and not let this opportunity go to waste.” 

Cadet Chiara Wurdack Simmons was born in Germany and is a double major in international affairs and German. While at West Point, Wurdack Simmons participated in the West Point Ski Patrol as a certified outdoor emergency technician. She participated in a study abroad program and attended the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt, where she studied defense economics and the law of armed conflict. Wurdack Simmons served as a cadet company commander for approximately 110 cadets. She is the vice president of the international affairs forum and has interviewed past U.S. ambassadors to Russia and Afghanistan, as well as the current U.S. ambassador to China. Wurdack Simmons will commission into the medical service corps as a medical evacuation pilot. 

"Raised in a single-parent household, I am humbled to have the opportunity to study at Carnegie Mellon. Seeing how hard my mom had to work to be able to receive a higher education, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to attend graduate school immediately after graduating from West Point." 

The Carnegie Mellon - West Point Scholarship provides full tuition for master’s degrees in international relations and politics, or information technology strategy, from Carnegie Mellon’s Institute for Politics and Strategy. 

About Carnegie Mellon 

Carnegie Mellon is one of the top universities in the country, with particularly strong programs in technical fields relevant to future Army leaders. In addition to strong programs in cyber security, international relations, and computer science, Carnegie Mellon is home to the Army Futures Command’s Artificial Intelligence Task Force. The Carnegie Mellon - West Point Scholarship was established in 2020 to facilitate the development of high-performing leaders in fields that are critical for the Army’s future needs, and to deepen the ties between the two institutions. This scholarship deepens the ties between two elite institutions and equips our graduates with valuable skills, at the beginning of their careers, in fields of growing relevance to the Army. 

About West Point 

The U. S. Military Academy at West Point is a four-year, co-educational, federal, liberal arts college located 50 miles north of New York City. It was founded in 1802 as America's first college of engineering and continues today as the world’s premier leader-development institution, consistently ranked among top colleges in the country. Its mission remains constant—to educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the nation as an officer in the U. S. Army. For more information, go to www.westpoint.edu.